Apple ’s MacBook Pro 13 in , which was been around for ages , was this year superseded by anew 14 in modelwith an update conception and more larboard . Yet the old 13 in Pro with M1 and Touch Bar ( ! ) remains part ofApple ’s product range . And it ’s hard to see why anyone would bribe it when the MacBook Air offers the same performance at a lower price .
So consecrate is Apple to the 13 in form divisor , in fact , that ’s it ’s bruit to be have an update . According to Bloomberg , Apple will launch an updated 13 in MacBook Pro next year , as one offive new Macs in 2022 .
Presumably it ’s just a psyche graft – a switch from M1 to M2 – in the same old chassis . Apple is unlikely to want to drop big bucks updating an old model .
peradventure this is the last MacBook with a Touch Bar . ( It wasalways doomed . ) Will it even get MagSafe ? That would intend an updated fabrication cognitive process , and we know Tim Cook only spends money on affair like that if he feels he really needs to .
But why even incommode with switch the central processor ? With the next MacBook Air rumor to get such big change , it ’s time for Apple to rethink its MacBook scheme .
End of an Air-a
Thenew MacBook Airis rumor to be bring forth an M2 processor , along with an all - new blueprint instead of that Hellenic Cuban sandwich shape that ’s been around for over a decade . With such a generational shift , it ’s also time for a new name .
Here ’s a favorable opportunity for Apple to permit the MacBook Air become a unexampled - coevals MacBook instead – particularly as the wedge shape that has characterise the Air line is phased out . Besides , “ Air ” does n’t say anything any more , when there ’s no standard MacBook to compare it to . Just MacBook is enough .
With the M2 , Apple also has the prospect to make the next MacBook ( Air ) even more equal to . If the M2 sustain 32 GB of RAM or else of the current 16 GB in the M1 , that would invoke the cap even high for the consumer market , and could be enough for someone who might otherwise have gravitated to a MacBook Pro . We ’d be talking about a perfectly sizable semi - professional laptop .
( Also , why not release it in dark grey and silver gray , for those who believe greenish and yellow do n’t fit on the conference mesa ? )
But all of this leads us to the next question . What way is there left for the MacBook Pro 13 in ?
A new product grid for 2022
The Greco-Roman Apple foursquare that Steve Jobs drew in the 1990s to tidy up and explain Apple ’s intersection kitchen range would be just as appropriate for the Mac in 2022 .
This is what Apple ’s Mac batting order could expect like in 2022 . observe that we ’ve take out the Mac mini and Mac Pro .
In a nutshell , we ’d be calculate at a MacBook for the masses and a MacBook Pro for those who need more . It ’s hard to see what could be squeeze in between , peculiarly not an honest-to-goodness legacy product that lacks MagSafe .
Some experts disagree – or retrieve that Apple disagrees . Bloomberg ’s Mark Gurman , for example , suppose Apple will indeed squeeze a new processor into an old plate . To which we ’d reply that either Gurman is misinformed or Apple ’s thinking is off the wall .
If the choice is between a ‘ good enough ’ MacBook with M2 and forward-looking design , or an out-and-out monster with M1 Pro / Max and a 14 in silver screen , who would choose a tired old MacBook Pro 13 in ? A gadget , moreover , with a Touch Bar , a five - year - old intent , and no MagSafe .
We hump Tim Cook is an expert at saving money when he can . The iPhone had fundamentally the same conception for four years ( from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 8) , a excogitation that now lives on in theiPhone SE . Reusing the same erstwhile physique , the same old components , is a heavy way to keep maturation and fabrication price for Apple .
Cook would sure as shooting like to squeeze a few more years out of his honest-to-goodness MacBook Pro 13 in design . But how about swallowing the stinginess and designate some pride in Apple ’s products instead ?
Imagine those laptop computer lined up in the Apple Store . A modernistic MacBook with M2 on the left . A blazing - fast 14 in MacBook Pro on the rightfulness . And then , in the middle , a token of past with thick covert bezel and a greasy Touch Bar that excogitate the pale freshness of the lights . The only reasonableness to purchase that electronic computer would be areallyattractive toll , but Apple is n’t one for bargains .
It ’s prison term to rip off the plaster , and let the onetime MacBook Pro die .
Different Think is a hebdomadary pillar , publish every Tuesday , in which Macworld writer expose their less mainstream popular opinion to public examination . This clause originally appear onMacworld Sweden . Translation ( usingDeepL ) by David Price .
